Lets read Everworld-Show me the way to go home.

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > Lets read Everworld-Show me the way to go home.

«‹›18 »

Tree Bucket: Apr 1, 2016; R.I.P.idura leucophrys

A bright future in politics?

# ? Jul 7, 2023 16:52

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Jun 7, 2024 20:19

Soonmot: Dec 19, 2002; Entrapta fucking loves robots; Grimey Drawer

Tree Bucket posted:

A bright future in politics?

Now all I can see is Christopher as Paul Ryan in that "work out" photoset

# ? Jul 8, 2023 15:33

Soonmot: Dec 19, 2002; Entrapta fucking loves robots; Grimey Drawer

quote:

CHAPTER XI

Senna wore a long robe with a hood that was folded back to show her hair and face. She said nothing. We stopped.

"Senna!" David cried.

She turned and began to move away. Walking quickly, almost seeming to glide. David started after her. Jalil grabbed his arm.

"No, "Jalil warned.

David shook him off. "She's trying to lead us to someplace safe."

Senna had stopped, still fifty feet away. Waiting. Silent.

"This feels bad, man," I whispered. "Why doesn't she say anything?"

"Doesn't want to wake up the whole neighborhood," David said. Suddenly, from back in the direction we'd come from, an uproar. Loud, male voices.

"You know a way out of this city?" David demanded of Jalil and me. I shook my head.

"But I don't trust her."

"I'm going with her," David said.

He started walking. Jalil and I looked at each other. All either of us saw was the whites of wide-scared eyes.

"This is bull," I said.

"Yeah," he agreed.

"But we have to stick together."

"She's the cause of all this," I argued.

But already I was in lockstep with Jalil, following David, following Senna, feeling like, Oft, God, it just getting worse, and I wouldn't have thought that was possible, The uproar of angry voices grew louder behind us. I quickened my pace. Senna. Senna would show us the way out. Yeah, I told myself, sure, yeah, she'd get us out of this. Senna was our friend. Senna was one of us, freaky, yeah, but one of u from the real world. I'd made out with her, after all, we'd been close, I'd gotten to second and that had to count for something. So why was she shining like a dashboard saint? Why was she silent? Why did she keep her distance? Down a darker than dark street, she led us, led us with her own eerie light. Led us on with a feeling of dread that mixed with hope and left the dread all the stronger. I so wanted to be home. A turn. Down an alley. David stopped. We caught up with him. The three of us stared down that alley. Nothing. No Senna. No way out. Dead end.

"There must be a way out," David said.

"She went somewhere. A doorway. We have to find it."

A rush of sandaled feet on stone. I spun around. A dozen warriors.

More coming. The es-cape was over.

"She wants us dead, man," Jalil said. "She wants us dead."

Hard to argue with that. Because we were sure dead now.

What the hell is Senna's goal here? Obviously the kids are safe, we're only on page 36, but what is she planning because it sure seems like she doesn't need to be rescued.

# ? Jul 8, 2023 19:09

Coca Koala: Nov 28, 2005; ongoing nowhere; College Slice

Soonmot posted:

I'd made out with her, after all, we'd been close, I'd gotten to second and that had to count for something.

Chris, my man, you gotta chill out a little bit. Time and a place, you know?

# ? Jul 8, 2023 22:43

Randal: Apr 20, 2016; not adding value on SA one post at a time

Coca Koala posted:

Interesting, there's absolutely ZERO recap of anything that happened in the first book - no "here's the setting and basic concept", the narration mentions names like April and David and Jalil but doesn't cover who they are at all, you're just very clearly intended to have read the first book, ideally right before starting the second book, and you have to know what the gently caress is going on because we're charging the aztecs and you better keep up, buddy.

I only had the second book growing up and it was so fascinating to hit the ground running and try to piece together whatever context I could

# ? Jul 8, 2023 22:49

Soonmot: Dec 19, 2002; Entrapta fucking loves robots; Grimey Drawer

quote:

CHAPTER XII

The first time I really noticed Senna was at a pool party at her house. Not Senna's party, of course - she'd never do anything so normal. It was April's party. April and Senna are half sisters. Hard to believe they share any DNA at all. April has all the charm, all the flirty smiles and the knowing winks and the deep, rich laughs. April is like her name: she's springtime. You're around her, you start feeling that maybe life is okay, maybe there's nothing to worry about maybe you'll get into the great school and get the great job and marry someone like April and still party with your friends when you're thirty years old. Not that she's even slightly airheaded or giggly, it's not like that. It's just that April makes you think she's been out the door, had a good long look at life, and decided it's safe. She's not idiot-happy. She's wise-happy. Senna would not be like that. It's not that she's depressed like some whiny chick stager with an acoustic guitar. Depressed is boring. Senna is not boring. Senna is the night to her half sister's day. She's that night where you're wide-awake and the energy inside you is making you drum your fingers and hitch your shoulders and bounce your leg impatiently. Senna's the night you cruise the streets, driving slow, eyes so alert, so hungry for something, something dangerous and sexy.

Senna's a magician, always promising to reveal, always hiding what's important.

Confusing, obscuring, misleading. Walk along this dark alley with me, Christopher. Why? I won't say. I'll only smile. And when you ask whether there's anything to fear, I'll say, "Yes, Christopher. Wasn't that what you wanted?"

She'd been at school, of course. But it's a big school. Lots of girls. I hadn't noticed her. Why? I have a theory. I think I didn't notice Senna because Senna didn't want to be noticed. Not by me. Not yet. But at that party, April's pool party, Senna had wanted me to see her, to focus on her, for my mouth to go dry, for my arms and legs to feel weak. Strange, freaky girl. Never underestimate the dark side of the Force. I'd always been the one in charge in previous relationships. I'm a big, glib, smart guy. I'm an expert at holding people at arm's length, at using wit to manipulate the distance between us. I wasn't in charge with Senna. She walked around the pool, one of those. wrap-around skirts drifting open, a drink in one hand, the other hand resting just below her navel, a thumb hooked in the waist of her skirt, like a guy would hook a thumb in his jeans. I made some dumb Joke through the cotton in my mouth. She made a smile. I asked her if I could have a sip of her drink. She said no. I asked if she was there alone. She looked at me. Appraising. Serious.

"I don't know," she said.

Stupid, the things you remember sometimes, huh? Stupid, the things that can fire up your imagination. A thumb in a waist, a refusal. A look that challenged me and made me realize instantly that I would fail the challenge.

Senna. I never loved her; I knew, from that first moment I knew she'd betray me.

But, good lord, I had wanted her. As for her? I'm not as dumb as I may act sometimes. I knew she had no real interest in me, as me. You know? I knew she was looking down at me the whole time, not impressed. Not reached. Not touched. Not by me. Not really.

See, I knew she was using me for something, setting me up, making plans for me, me as a pawn, me as a tool, me as something she could pick up or put down as she chose. Here's the sick thing? When she stopped seeing me I was a wreck. Not because I'd ever thought she would love me or sleep with me or be mine, all mine. I was crushed because I'd felt her closing in, the predator to my prey. And I wanted her to destroy me. I guess I felt like in that moment of destruction, I would really know her. Understand something. Now she had destroyed me. And still I knew nothing.

And here we get Christopher's view of Senna and their time together. Davids description of her made her out to be mysterious, Chris's makes her seem very sinister. I especially like that last paragraph.

# ? Jul 10, 2023 01:45

kiminewt: Feb 1, 2022

Pretty melodramatic, but I guess this is by a high schooler (and for them).

Also

quote:

Maybe you will ... still party with your friends when you're thirty years old

Unimaginable

# ? Jul 10, 2023 10:56

Soonmot: Dec 19, 2002; Entrapta fucking loves robots; Grimey Drawer

kiminewt posted:

Pretty melodramatic, but I guess this is by a high schooler (and for them).

Also

Unimaginable

I mean that's around the age when my friends started having kids.

# ? Jul 10, 2023 15:46

Soonmot: Dec 19, 2002; Entrapta fucking loves robots; Grimey Drawer

quote:

CHAPTER XIII

No Aztec love party this time. No food. No babes. A locked room. A toilet, no bath. A big, thick wooden door and stone walls and guards outside. The three of us sitting on our butts on stone, knees on elbows. Maybe no one had ever tried to escape from the Aztecs before. That didn't mean they couldn't adjust.

"Had to be a mistake," David kept muttering, "She didn't lead us down there to trap us."

"You know, this faith you have in Senna is really romantic and touching and all, but you're a damned idiot!" I raged after about his tenth time.

"She leads us all into this lunatic asylum to begin with, and next time we see her it's to lead us down a blind alley. So how about you get you head out of your butt, David? 'Cause here's a clue: She's not Snow Freaking White, and you aren't Prince Charming."

"Not the next time," David said.

Jalil sighed. "What?"

"I've seen her before this. After the lake, before this." That got my attention.

"Say what?"

"I saw her on the other side. In the bookstore. At least, it was, I don't know, like a vision."

"Your fantasies are not really all that relevant," Jalil said dismissively.

"It wasn't a fantasy. She was there. She told me there was going to be a big battle. Told me to stay out of it."

I swear if I'd had that sword back I'd have laid it into the dumb jerk's head.

"Heard her again, in my head," David said, staring down at the floor. "When the battle started. She said 'Run away. Run away, David.' She's not trying to kill us. She wants to save us."

�Hey, David. You're a Jew, right?"

�Half Jewish," he said.

�Yeah? Well you know the word 'schmuck'? Did I pronounce that right? 'Schmuck'? Or maybe you'd prefer a good old-fashioned Anglo-Saxon word, you -"

"Back off," David warned.

"Back off?"I yelled. "Back off? You hold out on us, you lead us after that evil chick, down that alley, so now here we are, trapped again, waiting to die -"

My voice broke. I put my head in my hands. I wanted to cry. I guess I did. How could I be there? How could I be there, waiting to die?

"I want to sleep, man," I said.

"That'd be good," David said. "Cross over, maybe get in touch with April. Find out were she is, how she's doing."

"We may not want to know," Jalil said.

"Can't sleep anyway, man," I said. "Can't sleep. In a couple hours.... What are we going to do?"

"Had to be a mistake," David mumbled into his hands.

"Senna didn't set us up. Had to be a mistake. We were too slow. She didn't have enough time. Probably our own fault." David muttered about Senna.

Jalil sat there talking to himself, spinning theories about Everworld, trying to figure out logically whether dying here meant death in the real world, or whether death here would merely bring us freedom from this awful place. For a while I made responsive grunts to Jalil. Then I stopped listening. David had his delusion, Jalil had his. David's world was somehow going o be about him playing hero. Jalil's world was going to somehow, somehow make sense. He was trying to keep his little house of logic Lego standing.

Me, I had no delusion. I just wanted to live, just wanted to go home. What I had instead was imagination. Terrible thing, imagination is, without imagination you can't picture every horrible detail in advance. Without imagination death is just death. With imagination, death is detailed. Detailed and specific and so real.

No one slept. Hours dragged. Hurry up, get it over with. Hurry up and die.

Turn off my brain! Turn off the feeling, the so-terribly-real feeling of being grabbed by strong hands and bent back, back over the altar, the sight of filthy priestly faces intent on their work, indifferent to me as a butcher is to a hog.

Obsidian knife rising. Stomach muscles screaming. Heart beating, oh, beating, beating, the bare skin of my chest vibrating with each desperate rhythm. Feeling the jagged-edged knife cut. Seeing the hands, the filthy, blood-caked hands diving into my own chest... No. the door opened. Brilliant sunlight made me squint, made me cover my eyes. No.

I think it's interesting how David is still so focused on Senna and how she's not at fault. They're obviously being manipulated by her, even if, maybe, getting dragged back to Everworld wasn't something she wanted.

# ? Jul 11, 2023 01:52

TGG: Aug 8, 2003; "I Dare."

This book was the book I started on, funny enough I never went back to read the first book but I did finish the series and it drat well goes some places. Christopher is a difficult character and is CRAZY problematic but he does get some solid growth and his deal gets fleshed out a bit more. I do remember this book series having a pile of sexual scenes in it which caught me by surprise coming from Animorphs and whatever light fantasy I was reading at the time. I ended up having Jalil as my favorite character for a reason that will become obvious in his POV book. Some of Jalil's musings actually helped me with some issues I was dealing with in my own life so I have a certain affection for the series.

# ? Jul 11, 2023 22:57

Soonmot: Dec 19, 2002; Entrapta fucking loves robots; Grimey Drawer

quote:

CHAPTER XIV

The three of us stumbled outside. Out into clean, pure sunlight, still low on the horizon. The Vikings were being assembled in the street. Hungover. Hair twisted. Beards matted. Dried vomit on their clothes. Exotic fruits and legs of lamb stuck in their belts and pockets, you know, in case they got hungry waiting to be eviscerated, in case the wait to die worked up an appetite. I spotted Thorolf. As much a wreck as the rest. Eyes blinking owlishly. Expression resigned, defeated. The other Vikings I'd known by name were gone. Sven Swordeater. Olaf Ironfoot.

�I don't see April," Jalil said.

�Maybe she's okay," David said.

"She was with the boats. Maybe she's okay."

"Or dead," I grated.

The guards started us all moving. There were more guards today. I guess our example made them nervous. We shuffled along, foot after foot, making a noise like some gigantic sack of dirt being dragged through the streets. Shuffle and stumble and mutter and glare. What a proud, brave bunch we were. I hated the Vikings. I hated us. Hated myself. Most of all I hated Senna. So bright. So sunny.

Bad things didn't happen on sunny days. Down the street. Onto the vast, open plaza They waited there, silent, impossibly silent, thousand, ten, hundreds of thousands! Their gaunt, staring black eyes in deep sunken sockets staring at us as we stumbled past. Staring at us. Staring at the food some of the Vikings carried -All of New Tenodititlan was turned out around the base of the pyramid, back at a safe distance, standing clear, holding in neat lines in neat rectangles, men, women, silent children. All blight and dark at once.

Soldiers, better-fed, taller, stronger arrogant in ludicrous feathers and animal hats were in front in a single file that outlined the masses. We stopped. like train commuters who'd reached a turnstile, we milled in disorder. Up ahead, not far enough ahead, too close, the priests were shoving the beaten men into a double line. Two by two, up the steps. The pyramid was steps on steps. The basic construction, the blocks themselves, formed narrow, steep steps. But a broader, gentler stairway had been layered over this, still steep, but not so anyone would be likely to fall. To our left a central stairway of sorts, for more-than-human feet and legs.

I could have climbed those stairs, too, but it would have been more climbing than walking. Ahead of the three of us I saw the first rank of Vikings climbing. Up they went, the head of the snake that extended up out of the mass of victims. They climbed, and the priests shoved, and suddenly it was my turn, suddenly filthy hands grabbed my biceps and shoved me into place, like an impatient first-grade teacher lining up the kids for a fire drill. Jalil was beside me. David behind. First step. Oh, God, we were climbing. Oh, God. No. Lift foot. Put foot down. Thigh and calf muscles work. Lift foot. Put foot down. Oh, God. I was climbing. Had to stop. Had to stop! Had to stop! Lift foot. Put foot down. Thigh and calf muscles work. Legs shaking, quivering from the effort. Stomach wanting to heave. Heart... heart...

No! Lift foot. Put foot down. Thigh and calf muscles.

I squinted to look ahead. Sunlight blinding. So far above us, but already too close. The head of the line was reaching the top. The black-robed priests waited. We'd just go back over, that was it, Jalil was right, we'd die here, but we'd be back over there, laughing about it all, wondering if It was all just a dream, laughing, all of us together going, "Man, was that weird or what?" I tripped.

David, behind me, put a hand out to steady me. Thanks. Thanks, David, wouldn't want a bruise, wouldn't want to fall and hurt myself. Oh, God, we were climbing. The line stopped. Then he appeared. Huitzilopotchli.

I feel this does a solid job selling the tension. Still no idea what April is going through though.

# ? Jul 12, 2023 02:38

kiminewt: Feb 1, 2022

"Bad things didn't happen on sunny days." is another line that would have been different had this book been written a few year later.

The whole description gives a real "like lambs to the slaughter" vibe.

# ? Jul 12, 2023 11:59

Soonmot: Dec 19, 2002; Entrapta fucking loves robots; Grimey Drawer

quote:

CHAPTER XV

Huitzilopoctli stepped out of his temple and stood there, legs spread wide, towering over the dozens of priests.

"His arm," Jalil croaked. "Didn't heal. Still gone. He has limits. He can be hurt."

I snorted in absolute contempt. Jalil still believed he was going to think his way out of this. Was he out of his stupid, stupid mind? Didn't he see? He looked at me. Our eyes locked. Yeah, he saw. He knew he was just making noise to drive away the panic. He knew. Four priests came hustling out from offstage. They carried a turquoise pillow, holding it up for their evil god like they were offering him a mint. From that angle I couldn't see what was on the pillow, but then Huitzilopoctli reached down and raised a tiny, toylike Mjolnir. It looked ridiculous in his massive hand. And I guess he thought so, too, because he held it up, displayed it for all to see, Silence. Then, Huitzilopoctli laughed. And everyone in the plaza below us laughed, too. I had forgotten them. But hearing that echo of laughter I twisted my head around and saw the spreading crowd. They seemed so far down.

The effect on the Vikings was what you'd expect. Mjolnir was as much magic as they had. And now it was Huitzilopoctli's toy. They'd flashed the cross at a vampire and had the vampire laugh. Then, having milked the desperate, near hysterical laughs, Huitzilopoctli lay Mjolnir back down on the pillow. The priests hustled Mjolnir away, and the blood-mad god stepped back into his temple. The line began to move. I couldn't see the first killing. Or the next the next. They were cut off from sight by the heads of those before me and the angle of the steps. I couldn't see the first forty or sixty or a hundred killings. But at that point I began to see the stream.

The sludgy, slow-moving stream of red that trickled and poured and congealed its horrifying way down the steps to our left. It was blood over blood. The wet and fresh over the baked and crusted. The higher we climbed, the thicker the crust. The higher we climbed, the quicker the stream. And then came the bodies. They rolled down. Stopped. Were kicked and shoved by lines of sweating priests. Bodies untouched, except that in each there gaped a black?red wound, a hole where a heart had been. Lift foot. Put foot down. Thigh and calf muscles. Stop! Stop! Stop! Lift foot. Put foot down.

Why couldn't I stop?

Stop! Run! Run away! Lift foot... So close now. A sound. Oh, no, no, no, no. The sound of knife in flesh. The grunt of pain. The grunt of effort. The sound of wet scooping ... A line of women arrayed up the steps. A dozen. Hoods, cloaks, faces half-shaded. Not looking at us, we were dead! No... one looking. Looking hard. Green eyes. Red hair. April! A dozen steps above us. She moved her head so slightly, side to side. "No," she signaled. Quiet. Quiet? Why? To save her? To keep her from being found out? Screw her! No, no, no, Christopher, die a man, die a man. Help her live. Be a man.

I nudged Jalil. I met his eyes then carried his gaze over to her. I twisted back to see David. He'd already spotted her. The sound of blade on meat. The ripple of blood trickling slowly in the heat. The smell of it. I looked at April. Silent, she mouthed a single word. "Mjolnir.''

We are about half way through and poo poo is getting tense! Whoever called mjolner getting used by the kids, looks like there might be a cookie with your name on it. Really looking forward to April saying what the hell happened to her and the rest of the women, for her to end up on the pyramid. This was the gore we only had, more or less, hinted at in animorphs.

# ? Jul 13, 2023 03:21

freebooter: Jul 7, 2009

The description of the blood coming down the steps later followed by the bodies really stuck in my head over the years, it's pretty much the only part of this book I remember.

Also lol at "still party at 30." How well I remember the teenage idea that by 30 I would of course be married with kids and a house in the suburbs...

# ? Jul 13, 2023 08:07

Soonmot: Dec 19, 2002; Entrapta fucking loves robots; Grimey Drawer

quote:

CHAPTER XVI

"What?" Jalil whispered to me.

"The hammer," I said. April was just ahead now, we were almost abreast of her. Her robe parted ever so slightly. I saw pale flesh.

I saw steel.

"You up for this?" David asked softly.

Up for it? I was shaking in every muscle. I was drenched in my own fear sweat. I was ten minutes from having my heart cut out and fed to a creature that couldn't possibly exist.

"I like it better than the alternative," I managed to say.

"On three. One."

Lift foot.

"Two."

Put foot down.

"Three!"

I jerked my quivering muscles, broke from the line, and went for April like she was a lifeline and I was a drowning man. Robe open! Sword! Ax! A long knife! Viking weapons. Steel! Hands fumbling, grabbing, missing, heart, gasping, heart, had it! My hand closed on the haft of an ax with a two-foot handle, a curved blade on one side and a pickax on the other.

"Go for the top!" David yelled, and I didn't need encouragement.

The four of us plowed through and around the Viking line, onto the blood-slicked steps, running, leaping, scraping knees, climbing, up and running, running across the platform, the foul, reeking platform. A Viking stretched out on the black altar, priest on his hands, priest holding his legs, knife high in the air, poised over a bared, blond-haired chest. Thorolf. The knife man gaped, outraged, like I'd just farted in church and giggled about it. I ran straight at him. He was still gaping when I swung that ax. His head kept the expression as it rolled down the steps.

No soldiers! Priests, black, filth-encrusted, their flesh mortified by thorns. They ran, confused, then came rushing back.

"drat it, Thorolf, get up!" I yelled.

I swung my ax at the line of priests. Jalil and David jabbed at them. What a surprise: The priests were not exactly profiles in courage. They backed up again, yelling, praying, screaming, mad and scared and worried that things had gone suddenly strange at their little picnic.

"The hammer, you idiots!" April yelled. "Get the stupid hammer before he comes!"

I saw the hammer. Still on its cushion, atop a platform like an auxiliary, backup altar. I knew who April meant by "he." The temple was impossibly tall above us. Open, yet dark. He could be just inside, watching, laughing, ready to come for us, ready to take over for his priests and murder us himself. I jolted toward the hammer. David sword?whipped a warrior who'd come rushing up. A sudden blow. I was down, breathless! What? A priest had plowed into me. I jumped up, kicked him, leaped over, and ran, racing Jalil for the hammer. The mass of priests charged at last.

Too late! The cushion. The hammer.

My fingers closed around the stunted handle of Thor's hammer. The priests stopped. Stared. Babbled to one another in renewed confusion. That was okay, be-cause the four of us were pretty lost, too.

"The Vikings," Jalil gasped, winded. "Show them the hammer."

I raced back to the edge of the platform. I held that hammer up in the air over my head. I yelled at the top of my lungs, "Mjolnir! The hammer of Thor! Come on, you bunch of babies, let's kick some Aztec butt!"

An excellent speech. A real cinematic moment. Only I realized that the Vikings were no longer looking at me. They were looking behind me. I felt the flesh on my back creep. Slowly turned my head, slowly my eyes, all in slow motion, molasses. Towering over me. His one remaining hand clutched a dripping red mass. Red stained his mouth and chin. I spun, kicked my leg out, whipped around, and like a pro pitcher throwing out a runner, I let fly with Mjolnir. The hammer flew. Huitzilopoctli just had time to look down before Trier's sledge hit him in the feathery loin-cloth. The hammer came sailing back toward me, but I was too gone to notice. It sailed past. Huitzilopoctli grunted.

He got a "now I'm going to kill you!" look on his blue-and-gold face. Then, slowly, slowly, he crumpled. Like a guy who's standing on his bike pedals when the chain breaks, be crumpled.

"Look out! Hell crush us!" April yelled.

She jerked me aside. David and Jalil ran. I ran. April ran. Huitzilopoctli yelled out in agony. He fell. The Vikings roared to life. The Aztecs moaned. We were over that platform, around the side of the temple, and heading down the far side by the time we heard Big H hit the steps.

"April?" I gasped.

"Yeah?"

"I am your slave for life."

did... did he just hit a god in the balls?

# ? Jul 15, 2023 01:25

Comrade Blyatlov: Aug 4, 2007; should have picked four fingers

Giving Ngannou a run for the money on "greatest dick shot of all time"

# ? Jul 15, 2023 01:44

bird food bathtub: Aug 9, 2003; College Slice

Soonmot posted:

did... did he just hit a god in the balls?

quote:

Like a guy who's standing on his bike pedals when the chain breaks

Sure seems that way!

# ? Jul 15, 2023 07:24

effervescible: Jun 29, 2012; i will eat your soul

Do nut shots on gods produce divine pain?

# ? Jul 15, 2023 15:24

Soonmot: Dec 19, 2002; Entrapta fucking loves robots; Grimey Drawer

quote:

CHAPTER XVII

No sleep, coming off battle, coming off an aborted escape, coming off that awful march up the side of that hideous pyramid. We were exhausted. Beyond exhaustion. We wandered, lost in the streets of the city of Huitzilopoctli for an hour before we located a gate. An hour during which time the sounds of combat and pillage and depredation grew louder, then fainter, then louder again. Mjolnir had woken the Vikings out of their slumber. They had no swords or axes, but a thousand or more Vikings in the middle of a city is serious trouble anywhere. And they had Mjolnir. The breeze carried that cry to our ears.

"Mjolnir! Mjolnir!" The Vikings historically didn't draw sharp lines between killing soldiers and killing innocent civilians. I didn't care. Anyone who wanted to eat me wasn't innocent. I ran. We ran, footsore and exhausted. Out of the gate. Out of that evil, evil city.

"The beach," Jalil said. "Still our best bet. The Aztecs will be busy with the Vikings now. We don't need anacondas and jaguars."

No one argued. We ran right back the way we'd come, away down across the battlefield. All the dead and wounded had been removed. I considered the ham I'd eaten the night before, No, don't think about that, Christopher. You're alive, so shut up. Onto sand. The sea. The Viking longboats were charred, smoking hulks. Charcoal boats. The Aztecs had burned them.

Everything stank of drowned fires. David cursed.

"That's a crime."

"That's a crime? They burn some boats, that's what you object to in their behavior?"

"What it is is stupid," Jalil said. "All that wood. Even if they didn't know how to sail the boats, they could have salvaged the wood,"

"Let's keep moving," April pressed.

We kept moving along the beach, down the longboat graveyard.

"Nice robe," I said. April gave me a weary smile.

"What, this old thing? Just something I threw on. And now I think I'll just throw it off."

She whipped the robe off, twirled it into a ball, and threw it into a smoking hull. It began to smolder. April still had her backpack with most of our worldly possessions, A CD player and some mostly bad music; a bottle of Advil; a book or two.

"So, what's your story?" David asked her.

"Well, I was in the boat. Saw the Vikings all come running when Huitzilopoctli showed up. I hid, but it didn't work. They found me. I thought they were going to kill me."

"Kind of was afraid they had," I admitted. "Or else .., never mind."

"Yeah, or else," April said darkly. "I think that was the plan. Only this priest showed up. He asked me if I was a virgin."

"So naturally you lied?" I suggested.

"I said, 'Absolutely. I'm even a vegetarian.'"

I laughed. The first laugh in what felt like a million years. David and Jalil smiled.

"Anyway." April shrugged. "The priest decided I'd look good in the temple. They don't get many green-eyed redheads. So I was an official temple virgin,"

"Good gig."

"Uh-huh. Till the ceremony's over. Then I think the virgins become property of the priests, who have their run and kill the girls in another sacrifice. That's what I understood, anyway."

"Sick, messed-up people," David said.

"Nazis without the tanks."

Jalil was walking backward. "I don't see anyone following us."

"They're busy," David said. "The Vikings finally got it together. I guess the hammer did it."

"Where are we going?" I wondered.

"Away from that place back there," April spat. "I just hope she makes it out of there."

We all stopped dead.

"She? Who?" Jalil snapped. April looked surprised.

"Senna." She must have noticed our spooked expressions. "Yeah, I saw her. She showed me where to find the weapons I smuggled to you."

"Ha!" David yelled.

"She was trying to help us."

I wasn't convinced. I knew what I'd seen. Or at least, I thought I did. But I kept my mouth shut.

"We can't leave her back there," David said flatly.

"We have no choice," Jalil said.

April said nothing. She was not rushing to the rescue of her half sister.

"We can wait till it's calmed down a little, till the heat is off us. We can go back. Find her."

David nodded vigorously, trying to convince himself.

"You know what, David? On my big list of things that ain't happening, going back into New Whatever is number one. It's higher than 'sticking needles in my own eyes.' Not happening."

"She saved our lives," David argued. He stepped closer, bristling, playing the tough guy. "You're going to
leave one of our own behind?"

I laughed. "David, I've just thrown down with Huitzilopoctli. You think you scare me?"

"You're just scared, period."

"Just scared? No. I'm not just scared. See, that makes it sound like some plain old everyday emotion. I'm terrified. Horrified. Overwhelmed with dread. I feel like my brain has been filled full of sewage and I'll never, ever be able to get it clean, like this stuff will eat me alive in my dreams, like I'll never see the world the same again. Scared? They want to eat us, you moron! They want to cut out our hearts and they almost did, you fool! You want to save Senna, go for it, Batman. See you later."

He didn't start walking toward the city. And I didn't start walking away down the beach.

"Look, Testosterone Twins?" April said. "Go back, don't go back, either way, right now we need to get somewhere where we can rest and sleep and eat and be away from those freaks. We are beat-up, exhausted, worn down. David, you'd be lucky to walk back before you fell asleep in your tracks. So let's compromise, all right? Let's find a safe place."

"I know a safe place," Jalil said. "The real world. Didn't used to think it was safe. Gangs and drugs and racist cops and one thing or another, but I have changed that opinion. Nothing that exists in the greater Chicago metropolitan area is half as bad as what goes on back in that lunatic asylum. If I believed in hell it would be approximately like that city."

"All of Everworld can't be like that," David said.

It began to occur to us that we were moving farther from the ocean, now following the line of the riverbank toward the interior. The river even looked like it might curve back closer to New Tenochtitlan. No one was enthusiastic about that. The river wasn't impossible to swim, but no one was ready to hand out any guarantees as to the animal life out in that increasingly brown, almost chocolate water. You see jungle, you see water, you think piranha. Then we came around a spit of land, the last of the dwindling sand, and saw a bridge. We crouched behind a tree that was far, far too small to hide us. Like four big Sylvesters trying to surprise Tweety Bird.

"Bridge," David said.

"Oh, is that what it is? You know, because I wasn't sure, what with it being this big stone walkway going from one side of a river to the other." David blushed, embarrassed.

"No guards. Not that I can see, anyway."

"Not even with your superpowers?" This time he just ignored me.

"We better move fast. No guards now, but there might be real soon. If they want to cut us off, this is the place."

He was right. He was also annoying. I considered telling him so, but now was not the time for a battle over who was in charge. We started walking toward the bridge. Then faster. Faster, as the sense of urgency grew, faster, and then we were running, panting with the escape-panic chasing us. Up onto the bridge, racing one another like all the bogeymen who ever hid in a dark basement were after us. We reached the far side of the river. Stopped.

Looked at one another and laughed sheepishly. We started walking again. Down the far bank. Toward the ocean. Jungle to our right. Away from the city. Away from Senna. Away from that city of blood and horror. And as far as I was concerned, I was never going back. I was cured of the desire to learn what Senna had in store for me. Cured of that witch.

We find out where April was and Christopher continues to be surprisingly introspective and honest about himself.

# ? Jul 16, 2023 23:04

Zore: Sep 21, 2010; willfully illiterate, aggressively miserable sourpuss whose sole raison d�etre is to put other people down for liking the wrong things

Yeah, Christopher is a piece of work but he's pretty clearheaded about exactly who he is and what he's feeling.

It just doesn't ever really stop him from acting like a poo poo. Honestly he always felt to me like who Marco would have probably become if the events of Animorphs never happened and he didn't have a friend like Jake.

# ? Jul 16, 2023 23:23

Soonmot: Dec 19, 2002; Entrapta fucking loves robots; Grimey Drawer

oh my god you're right.

David was an outsider. And also, David is no Jake. Christopher was the leader of that friend group. What a Toxic loving dynamic!

# ? Jul 16, 2023 23:28

freebooter: Jul 7, 2009

Zore posted:

Yeah, Christopher is a piece of work but he's pretty clearheaded about exactly who he is and what he's feeling.

It just doesn't ever really stop him from acting like a poo poo. Honestly he always felt to me like who Marco would have probably become if the events of Animorphs never happened and he didn't have a friend like Jake.

I think Marco losing his mum* probably changed him and sapped him of a Christopher-esque teenage cruel streak he might've otherwise developed. I also think that a lot of teenagers who are kind of shitheads, like Christopher, grow out of it.

(*Though now that I think of it that is, of course, part of the broader events of Animorphs)

# ? Jul 17, 2023 00:30

Tree Bucket: Apr 1, 2016; R.I.P.idura leucophrys

For sure. An important part of growing up is remembering things you said at age 15 and then yelling AUUGGH involuntarily

# ? Jul 17, 2023 00:47

Strategic Tea: Sep 1, 2012

I feel like he has that sort of teenage solipsism. He knows who he is, but also knows that everything that's Not Him is contemptible (if he can fight it) or gross and just not right (if he can't).

# ? Jul 17, 2023 18:02

Soonmot: Dec 19, 2002; Entrapta fucking loves robots; Grimey Drawer

I was an overall good kid and I still cringe thinking back on some of the things I believed. poo poo I looked at my rap sheet on here last year and was horrified.

quote:

CHAPTER XVIII

"Yogurt." I started at the list in my hand. White, college-ruled notebook paper, folded in four. Yogurt. Coffee filters. Double-A batteries. Toilet paper. Cookies, liquid hand soap. Ground turkey. The list was in my left hand. My right hand was on the push bar of a shopping cart. I was standing by the dairy case of the Jewel. A woman in a long coat stared at me. "Yogurt," I said. She looked at me like I might be dangerous. I stared down at the yogurts. So many lands. So many styles. "So," I muttered under my breath. "The real world." I was shopping for my mom. I remembered her asking me. I remembered that the Real World Christopher hadn't slept much last night because the Real World Christopher knew that Everworld Christopher was getting ready to take a one-way trip to the human butcher shop.

Now RW and EW Christophers became one. I was me, and him. And who was me, and who was him, was impossible to say.

"So. He did fall asleep," I said, referring to EW Christopher. But it felt wrong calling him "he." Like he wasn't me.

It was evening here, My dad had forgotten to pick up the groceries, my mom was working late and wouldn't have time, so, restless, I'd volunteered.

Now here I was in the bright, overlit, too-busy, too-colorful, too-much-going?on-all-around-me grocery store and yet, I knew I was also asleep in the jungle at the edge of an empty beach.

"Excuse me," a middle-aged guy said and made a polite smile.

I pushed my basket out of the way. I needed ground turkey. I moved on to the meat counter and ordered a pound. Big slabs of red and pink and pale meat lay in rows, in mounds, in stacks.

I remembered the ham I'd eaten. I remembered the fact that all the bodies were quickly taken off the battlefield. Had to be ham. The Aztecs must have pigs, right?

"Pound of ground turkey," I said to the butcher. I was sweating. This body was tired. Not as tired as my other self, but tired. It had been a rough couple of days. Two days here to one over there. The ratio seemed to change. The two universes were not in sync. The cog wheels of time moved in jerks, slips, forward, far forward. Fast, slow. Two days here since I'd last slept, so briefly, over there. Two days of knowing that I was destined to be a human sacrifice.

Two days of wondering, fearing, waiting to suddenly pop out of existence altogether, victim of a murder I'd never see or feel.

"Here you go. Anything else?" I shook my head. Don't throw up. Don't throw up in the Jewel, Christopher. I pushed the basket toward the checkout. Long lines. Forget it!

Who cared about yogurt and coffee filters and... No. No. Don't lose it, Chris?man. Hang in there, Hitchcock. This is the real world. This is where you want to be. I waited. I glanced at the National Enquirer and the Globe and the Sun. I considered picking up a TV Guide. I had stopped sweating. My heart was calmer. My stomach ... as long as I didn't think about it. "Paper or plastic?"

"Plastic," I said. The big choice in the real world: paper or plastic bags.

I paid and pushed the basket out into rain that had made the night fall sooner. Not bad rain. Just enough, and cold enough, to make you want to run. Over there, the other me was thirsty. We hadn't found water. Or food. Over there my head wound was throbbing. Over there we'd finally Just fallen down where we were, dropped to the ground in a small clearing between towering trees. I was standing watch. Only I wasn't, was I? I was here, which meant I was asleep. The jungle animals could creep up on us anytime. And worse than animals. I piled the stuff in the back of my Cherokee. I drove home down tree-lined streets.

Home. My house. With the decrepit tree house out back that had been taken over by my little brother. My house, my lawn, the lawn I would have to mow on Saturday. Assuming I was alive and the rain stopped. I loaded up the groceries, wrapped the handles of the plastic bags around my wrists, wanting to make it all in one trip. Through the garage, up the deck, through the back door.

"You get the coffee filters?" my dad asked. I nodded.

"Uh-huh."

He was standing by the kitchen island, turning the salad spinner, TV on with the news. He's shorter than me by a couple of inches. The tall genes come from my mom.

"Is Mom home?" He shook his head.

"Not yet. Man, I should have had you pick up some new lettuce; this lettuce is going limp."

"Kind of like you, huh?" I said. He nodded, accepting the hit.

"A) Don't make crude jokes; B) don't make crude jokes about me; and C) come over here and put your hand in the Cuisinart."

My dad and I share a sense of humor. He has a medical supply business. You know, sells stuff to hospitals. I guess he doesn't get a lot of opportunity to be funny at work. My mom is different. It's not that we're not close. But she works hard.

She's a lawyer. Put her-self through law school while she was pregnant with my little brother and my dad was being a dog, getting down with his secretary at the Holiday Inn. It all made her a little hard, carrying all that weight, me, my brother, my dad. She's more serious than me or my dad. Has more of a temper, not that it's her fault. Her job is stressful and sometimes she'll blow up and then, look out. Ten minutes later she's apologizing and rubbing your shoulders and asking if you want a cookie or whatever, but that doesn't change the fact that we all take a step back when she gets that way.

"Is it a major tragedy if I bail on dinner?" I asked. He gave me the fish eye.

"You see that I'm cooking so you run away?" I shrugged.

"Well, there's that. Plus I wanted to hook up with some friends." He didn't answer right away.

"How are you doing, Christopher?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean the last couple days you've been wandering around here like someone ran over your dog."

"I don't have a dog."

"A figurative dog, not a literal dog."

"I'm fine. It's just this whole heroin addiction thing," I said. My dad rolled his eyes.

"Go. Go chase some girl and leave your mom and me and Mark to enjoy my world-famous limp salad and grilled chicken."

I laughed. I started to go. But then I didn't. I don't know why. The kitchen just seemed warm and, you know, like my kitchen. My house. Normal. My dad looked up, saw I was still there. He shot me a questioning look.

"The ladies will just have to wait. I'm not going to let all of you get salmonella and leave me out."

I should find David and April and Jalil. I should check in. Plan. Work something out. find an escape from our nightmare. But I didn't want to think about Loki or Huitzilopoctli, trolls or blood-caked priests, Vikings or Aztecs. I wanted a normal dinner in a normal world. I wanted my dad and my brother and, yeah, I wanted my mommy.

A real Chicagoan would have said �the Jewels�. Also, this was a sweet chapter. We are past the halfway point for this book!

# ? Jul 17, 2023 22:49

Comrade Blyatlov: Aug 4, 2007; should have picked four fingers

quote:

Now RW and EW Christophers became one. I was me, and him. And who was me, and who was him, was impossible to say.

Someone's been listening to Echoes

# ? Jul 17, 2023 22:52

Malpais Legate: Oct 1, 2014

I wonder if/when we'll get some kind of explanation for the two worlds/two bodies situation. After Animorphs I'm kinda disappointed we don't get a little more time with the real world versions so the teenaged drama can brush up against the life or death drama.

# ? Jul 18, 2023 16:36

Zore: Sep 21, 2010; willfully illiterate, aggressively miserable sourpuss whose sole raison d�etre is to put other people down for liking the wrong things

I don't think its a huge spoiler to say, but while Everworld is always the focus later books definitely split time more with the real world and have plot and such there.

# ? Jul 18, 2023 17:04

Soonmot: Dec 19, 2002; Entrapta fucking loves robots; Grimey Drawer

Doing two chapters today since this week is a bit busy for me!

quote:

CHAPTER XIX
Sitting on the couch watching sitcoms on TV. The definition of normal. When life goes weird on me I touch base with sitcoms. The familiar sets. The familiar sound of laugh track or live audience. The entrances and exits. The pauses as the actors wait for the laugh to build and fade. The familiar setups and payoffs to the jokes. All that stuff is like part of my DNA. The new and the fairly recent: Frasier and Seinfeld and Friends. The older stuff, M*A *S*H* and Mary Tyler Moore and especially the great, the incomparable Dick Van Dyke Show. The stuff is the map to my brain. The foundation of my thinking. When life becomes surreal, unrecognizable, strange, I go back to the source. Talk to me, Niles; toss off that snobbish line and Frasier will take that Jack Benny reaction shot that milks laughs out of thin air. Talk to me, Tim the Tool Man; show me that tired, satisfying formula, hah-hah, ~ too much power, better talk to Wilson about it. Phoebe! Monica! Chandler, could you BE more funny? Talk to me, Rob and Laura; make me laugh, make me laugh at all the jokes I've heard and seen a million times before. Master of your domain. I hate spunk. Rucy, what are you ap to now? Ohhhh, Rooooob! So no one told you life was gonna be this way, clapclap-clapdapdap. You're the guys I can count on. You're the guys who stay the same, day in, day out. I clicked back and forth, thumb on the "last channel" button between an old Mary and a not-quite-so-old Friends. A definite resemblance between Mary Tyler Moore and Courtney Cox. Huh. Never noticed that before. Stay focused on that, Christopher. Not Loki's son the gigantic wolf, or Huitzilopoctli's priest-killers, or the thousand terrors that even now may be crowding around your sleeping body in a jungle that may be a trillion miles away or right here, in this very room. The phone rang. I jumped. I tried to ignore it, but it felt bad.

Then my mom's voice. "Christopher! It's for you."

"I'm not home," I yelled.

"It's someone named April, and I'm not paid to lie for you."

�No, you're paid to lie for your clients," I muttered so that she could hear me muttering with-out hearing what I'd said. I clicked the TV off. �Sorry, Mary, sorry, Monica, gotta go." I got up and went to the phone in the hallway. "What?" I snapped.

�You fell asleep while you were supposed to be on watch," she accused.

"Sorry. I was tired. Arrest me for dereliction of duty. Are you here or there?"

�I'm here. Just took over guard duty, so he's over there and I went back to sleep. David says we should get together. We need to talk. He's at his job at Starbucks. He gets off in an hour."

"I'm busy," I said.

"Busy? Doing what?"

"Watching TV, April. Is that okay? I'm very busy watching TV. So why don't you and David go have your little conference without me?" Silence. No answer. "Well, bye, April," I said.

"Christopher, we need to figure a way out of this." I laughed.

"You don't get it, do you? We have no control over the situation. None. We didn't [ask to be in this. We had no control. And what do you think we're going to do now? Did you happen to notice an escape hatch when you were playing vestal virgin? Something you didn't tell us about? Because if there's an escape hatch, I'd love to hear about it, but right now, April, I'm going to go back and figure out the mystic connection between Mary and Monica. Good luck, say hi to David for me, that's all." I slammed down the phone.

My little brother, Mark, was standing on the stairs above me, pretending like he was about to come down but actually spying. He resumed his descent once he heard me hang up. "What, are you with the CIA now?" I asked him.

"Don't need to spy, homes, I could have heard you outside."

"'Homes'? 'Homes'? Well, listen up, homey. A) you're a lily-white kid from the upper middle class whose mommy and daddy drive minivans that would match except that one is blue and the other is green, so you are not, repeat, not a streetwise black kid. And B) don't listen to my phone calls." Mark sneered.

"You need to get over this attitude toward black people."

"I don't have an attitude toward black people, I have an attitude toward punks. Punk."

"Yeah, right. Just so happens all your friends are white."

"Hey! It so happens I'm trapped in hell with a black guy, I spent last night with a black guy! I'm sleeping with him right now in -" I stopped. About two-dozen words too late.

"No way!" Mark yelled, his face a mixture of shock, amazement, gloating, and unease. "Oh, man. Oh, man."

"That came out wrong," I said.

"Oh, man. No, no, that's cool. I'm down with that. That's cool. Each his own, man. I support you. You know, you gotta be what you gotta be, Tinky Winky."

I started to explain. Started to correct. But he was gone, out the door, no doubt to spread the word. "Not that there's anything wrong with that," I said to his back. A classic Seinfeld line. I had just had a perfect sitcom moment. A classic sitcom setup. Sitcomworld had just intruded into the real world. Surreal. It made me a little uncomfortable. Not as uncomfortable as Fenrir, Loki's bus-sized wolf-son popping into my world had made me, but uncomfortable. Then I laughed. Sitcom reality was my friend, trying to save me.

It had opened its arms to me and wrapped me up in safety. I was good till the next commercial. Good till another me, a faraway me, a me I didn't want to be anymore, woke up. "Not a sitcom over there, my man," I said to myself, flicking the remote again. "Action-adventure? Horror? Fantasy? Not my fantasy." I hit the remote. The credits were rolling beside a promo for a lame Steven Seagal movie. I was part of the cast of a movie directed by lunatic immortals. I was one of the actors. Question was, was I the hero? Or was I the guy they kill of early to give the audience a good fear-rush? "No, that's not the question, either. The question is, 'How the hell do I get out of this movie?'

The start of this chapter reminds me of this song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeE-6P5iHhE

Good to see Christopher get called out on his bullshit by his much cooler brother, but my god is this 90s overload!

quote:

CHAPTER XX

I was asleep in my bed when I awoke in Ever-world. I lay there confused. Lost. Looked for the numbers on my clock. Looked for the faint outline of my window. For the line of light under my door cast by the night-light in the hallway. None of the above. I felt like crying. I didn't want to be here. Suddenly a hand damped over my mouth. Soft hand. April's luminous eyes just inches above mine. A finger over her mouth. A silent, voiceless, "Shhh." I nodded. She took her hand away. Jalil lay nearby, on his stomach, awake, alert. I was on my back. Not the best way to deal with an attack. I strained to hear what was happening. The sounds of the nocturnal forest. The breeze rustling tall branches, the unsettling sounds of tiny things creeping and crawling beneath the fallen leaves. And something more purposeful. Whatever it was, it wasn't afraid. It wasn't creeping. Wasn't stopping to listen. It moved confidently, swiftly, quietly, Toward us. I saw David off to my right, gripping his sword, kneeling, poised, tensed. I rolled over, ever so quietly. Fumbled in the darkness, feeling for my ax. I couldn't find it, fought down the panic, felt around more methodically, grabbed April's ankle instead, didn't want her ankle, wanted my ax, wanted something I could use, man, something I could use to kill, stay alive.

Welcome back to Everworld, Christopher Hitchcock.

"Sounds like more than one," Jalil whispered.

"More than one what?" I muttered. Whoever was moving stopped. I froze. All but my fingers, which kept up their blind search for the ax.

Got it! Fingers tightened around it, security, God knows not much, but some. I never wanted to be without a weapon in Everworld again. And then, a chill that shivered my back. I felt something land on my shoulder. Not heavy. Small.

Alive. Something definitely alive. A needle-sharp point pressed against the side of my neck. A poke, a threat, a warning. Some-thing sharp pressed against an artery.

"If friends, no fear," a flutey voice said from the darkness. Not from whatever was on my shoulder. "If foe, fear."

"Friends," I said, ordering myself not to move, not to move a millimeter.

"Show," the odd voice said. I stayed very still. I didn't know what was sticking me in the neck. Didn't know if it was dangerous, deadly, or just painful, but there is something about a dagger's point against your flesh, against the prickling, goose-bumped flesh that stretches so ineffectually over the pulsing Jugular vein that concentrates all your attention.

"They want us to show ourselves," Jalil said.

"Something... is poking... my neck," I said.

"Stay ready," David warned. "Stand up slowly."

I stood up slowly. The needle point stayed with me. I didn't let go of my ax. Didn't try to use it, either. You don't want to use an ax to swat something on your neck.

"We're friends," April said in her gentlest, talking-to-rabid-dogs voice.

"Whose?" the voice asked. Amused.

"Whose friends? Um ... we're one another's friends. We'll be your friends if you don't mean us any harm."

"Light," the voice said, and instantly the woods around us were illuminated by a dozen wobbly, wavering lights, each perhaps as bright as a candle, in the pitch?black it seemed pretty bright. Bright enough to show me that we were a lot worse off than we thought. They were all around us. What I had taken to be one or maybe a few creatures moving quietly was in fact twenty or twenty-five creatures, each the size of a man. The size of a man. And that was it for resemblance to anything I'd ever seen before. They were dark gray as well as I could tell in the shadows. Maybe six feet tall, but closer to twelve feet long from nose to toes. Or from nose to tail. The face was a long, very long, maybe three-foot-long point, a hard cone, a needle, like an anteater who'd evolved to hunt for ants inside of concrete. Resting above, at the back of the needle were two eyes, enormous, blue-irised within dark red. The rest of the body was a sort of a cramped letter C. The body arched from nose down to claw feet, so that the sharp talon toes were almost directly beneath the point of the snout. It had a sort of short tail or long fin halfway around the arc to provide some kind of balance. Two legs thrust forward, two brawny arms at mid-arc, two smaller, delicate arms jutting out just below the eyes. That was most of them, the big ones. But there were the others. Smaller, miniature versions, but with gossamer wings. One of these was resting comfortably on my shoulder, with its six-inch version of the needle mouth pressed against my neck. The candle lights were coming from the bellies of the little ones. Fireflies the size of pigeons. The nearest of the big ones walked toward us. It was an impossible movement. A balancing act with each step. A leg stretched out, almost telescoping out, with loose-fitting gray flesh unwrinkling. The foot would touch down, balance would be reestablished, then the other foot would come forward, very slowly. We could run and there was no way these things were going to catch us.

Then, as if reading my mind, one of the lights, the little ones, jerked toward David. David had twitched. The little one had covered twenty feet before David could go from start of twitch to end of twitch. I did a quick, desperate brain-search. What were these things? What dark myth had these monsters crawled out of? But I knew: There was nothing human here. Man's gods and demons and monsters are always mostly human. Distorted in form or power, but mostly human. I sucked In a deep breath.

"Who are you people?"

Cool, weird aliens!

# ? Jul 19, 2023 17:22

freebooter: Jul 7, 2009

Oh hell yeah baby it's Coo Hatch O'Clock

quote:

"Yogurt." I started at the list in my hand. White, college-ruled notebook paper, folded in four. Yogurt. Coffee filters. Double-A batteries. Toilet paper. Cookies, liquid hand soap. Ground turkey. The list was in my left hand. My right hand was on the push bar of a shopping cart. I was standing by the dairy case of the Jewel. A woman in a long coat stared at me. "Yogurt," I said. She looked at me like I might be dangerous. I stared down at the yogurts. So many lands. So many styles. "So," I muttered under my breath. "The real world." I was shopping for my mom. I remembered her asking me. I remembered that the Real World Christopher hadn't slept much last night because the Real World Christopher knew that Everworld Christopher was getting ready to take a one-way trip to the human butcher shop.

https://twitter.com/willuminati_/status/1681836141622833152

# ? Jul 20, 2023 10:47

Soonmot: Dec 19, 2002; Entrapta fucking loves robots; Grimey Drawer

quote:

CHAPTER XXI

"We are Coo-Hatch of the Third Forge. You?"

"Um... humans," I said.

The main Coo-Hatch blinked slowly. "Two legs, two arms, small eyes, fur on head, clothed. Human," he said, adding an unspoken but implied 'duh.' "Which humans?"

"We're minstrels," David said. "Traveling entertainers. I'm David. That's April, Jalil, and Christopher."

I couldn't believe David remembered our cover story. Minstrels. Yeah. It worked with the Vikings.

But the Vikings were party animals by nature. These guys didn't look like they'd really care for any drinking songs. The Coo-Hatch used one of his tiny uppermost hands to point at my ax, at David's sword.

"Viking weapons. Poor steel. I am Estett."

Jalil said, "The Coo-Hatch. I remember the Vikings, when they were asking us about the Het-wan and Loki? They mentioned the Coo?Hatch."

"Sven Swordeater said they trade with the Coo-Hatch for steel," David recalled.

"Not Coo-Hatch steel," the weird thing named Estett said, eyeing our weapons again with un-mistakable distaste. "Lend." He held out his hand for my ax. It had been mere moments since I swore never to give up my weapon. I handed it to him anyway. Estett used one of his medium arms to test the balance of my ax, then threw it, twirling, end over end. It thunked into a tree and quivered there, "Viking steel," he said with no effort to hide his condescension. Then he opened a slit in the skin of his flank, and I realized for the first lime that it was some kind of clothing. With one of his middle arms he drew out what looked like a small airplane propeller, a foot in diameter, with the blades bent back and a round hole in the center. The steel shone in the dim light. Glittered. Like it was radioactive. Maybe it was. With feline speed, the Coo-Hatch threw the weapon. It flew through the air, twirling, level, sliced Into a tree, through a tree, so fast, so easily that the tree stood still, poised, needing a fresh breeze before it began to fall. The tree fell straight toward us, fifty feet of bare trunk before it spread into branches. Right toward us.

"Run!" David yelled. But before we could react, before we could do more than flash on some red-plaid lumberjack yelling, "Timber!" the rest of the Coo-Hatch struck. With no word spoken, no evidence of haste, no sign of concern, but with easy, liquid grace, the other Coo-Hatch all drew similar weapons and sent them flying. The tree's trunk, already at a sharp angle and accelerating down toward my head, was sliced into two dozen separate logs, The logs fell. The Coo-Hatch didn't move. And some subconscious Instinct for survival kept us all rooted, too. Like mortar shells, the logs fell around us. Each log was a neat two or three feet long. Each impact made the ground jump. Bruised my soles and rattled my knees. The branches fell far behind us. The spinning propellers all arced back toward their owners, who caught them on their needle noses or mouths or whatever they were. It was a disconcertingly comical thing to see. I decided not to laugh.

"Coo-Hatch steel," Estett said with evident satisfaction. It could have been a threat. As a threat it was a pretty good one. The message was so, so clear: We can make you into salami.

But I had a feeling maybe scaring us wasn't the point. My dad's a salesman. I know salesmen.

"Pretty good," I said. "So how much do they cost?"

quote:

CHAPTER XXII

The Coo-Hatch led us through the darkness before dawn. We followed. Quiet Not terrified, but nervous. I wondered if there was ever going to be a moment in Everworld when I wasn't at least nervous. They were strange creatures, that's for sure. But strange as they were, dangerous as they could dearly be, they didn't give me the sick pit-of-the-stomach dread I felt when facing a simple, dirty Aztec priest. For one thing, they'd chopped up a tree. Not one of us. For another thing, it was hard to take that bizarre walk of theirs without wanting to giggle. Sort of like an exaggerated Groucho walk. Funny. There was no avoiding it, it was funny. I guess Jalil saw me grinning.

"Here's a suggestion: Don't laugh at them. Or if you do, go stand far away from me."

"They seem nice enough."

"You're not even nice enough," Jalil said darkly.

They led us to a stream, barely visible in the light cast by the hovering bird-creatures. We could hear it gurgling and chuckling like any stream in the real world. But it was concealed by high-grown ferns and palms and weeds. The Coo-Hatch made a clearing.

They used their throwing blades. It took about three seconds. They turned the overgrown weeds into a lawn. We could have played a game of croquet. They made a fire by striking sparks from a chunk of rock and a small triangle of steel.

"Not Coo-Hatch steel," Estett explained, indicating the triangle. "Coo?Hatch steel cuts rock." Then all of us, Coo-Hatch and human, sat down around a modest fire and crossed our legs. It felt okay, weirdly enough. Sitting with a bunch of aliens in the middle of a jungle in the night. Odd to be more at ease with a bunch of aliens, a bunch of off-world freaks than the Aztecs, or, for that matter, some of the Vikings. But "odd" was the synonym for "normal" in Ever?world. I almost wished the Aztecs would come after us and have these boys demonstrate their blades on them. I wished that a lot.

"What now? We sing 'Kumbaya'?" David whispered.

"Now we do business," I said.

"Why?�

"Because that's what these guys want to do," I said. "They're salesmen, can't you tell?"

David nodded. "Fair enough. I don't need to be sliced and diced. We do what they want."

"What do we have to trade?" April asked. "And what are we buying?"

"I wouldn't mind having one of those throwing knives," Jalil said.

"I still have the stuff in my backpack," April said. She swung if off her shoulder and onto her lap. "Advil? I have Advil. The CD player. Maybe they'd be interested in that." She was pulling things out one by one. The rest of us were reaching under our various Viking-issue animal skins to dig in our jeans pockets. The Coo-Hatch were staring. I watched the royal-blue irises within the bulbous red eyes. The blue expanded and contracted. But mostly there was no response. The expressions seemed easy enough to understand. Mostly indifference. No reaction to a bottle of Advil.

"Let's see if they'll sell us Manhattan for twenty?four dollars' worth of beads," I said. Item after item. April emptied her bag, then we started emptying our pockets. We still had a lot of keys. Useless. I'd had to get myself a spare for use on the other side, back in the real world. The Coo?Hatch looked at the keys, tested the metal, shrugged, handed them back. They were marginally more interested in Jalil's thin Swiss Army knife. They sneered at the steel, of course. Not impolite, just like, "Yeah, big deal." But they liked the idea, the mechanism. They opened the tiny blade and the tiny screwdriver.

"They come bigger sometimes," Jalil explained. "Several blades, Phillips, corkscrews, scissors, saw, so on."

Estett nodded, a very human gesture. "Poor steel, but interesting." He shot a sidelong look at some of his people. I had a feeling that if we ran into the Coo-Hatch a few months down the road they'd be offering little Coo-Hatch Army knives for sale. A slight glimmer of reaction to the CD player. The Coo-Hatch touched it Then pushed it away contemptuously.

More keys. A felt-tip pen. No reaction. Two books. No reaction.

"Wait," April said. She reached across me to grab the top book. Chemistry: Principles and Application. She flipped through the pages. Then went to the index. Then went to a particular page. She opened the book and held it out for Estett. Red eyes stared. Then ...

"Ah!" The Coo-Hatch almost snatched for the book, then caught himself,

"Lend? Examine?"

"Sure," April said. She handed the book to the alien.

Estett turned the pages reverently. He held it with his middle arms and turned the pages with his upper, delicate arms. He kept turning. Then, looking embarrassed, he closed the book reluctantly and handed it back.

"What did you show him?" I asked April.

"A description of the steel-making process."

"Trade?" Estett asked.

"What do you have on the table, dude?" I asked him. He considered.

"Fix small red knife,"

"It's not broken." Jalil said.

"Weapons," David interrupted greedily. "We want the throwing blades."

Estett may have laughed.

Sounded like a laugh. Jt shouldn't have, though. Not with that mouth, that throat. Then again, he was speaking English, and reading English, so who was I to object to the fact that his laugh sounded almost human?

"Three years' training to master the throwing blade," Estett said. "Handle wrong way, no fin?gers, no arm. Drop, no foot. Throw badly, no house, many die. Coo-Hatch do not sell weapons. Sell tools. Humans do not need more weapons."

"Hey, I need more weapons," I said. "This human sure needs some serious heat. You want to know where I've been lately? I could use artillery, let alone a knife."

David's eyes glinted angrily. "Estett, what we want is the -"

April interrupted, putting a hand on his arm. "He's right, David. You've never used a weapon like that. It'd be like giving a machine gun to a little kid."

"Ouch."

"I never used a sword, either, but I figured it out," David argued.

"Swords don't cut through trees, David. You think you're going to grab one of those blades and go back after Senna? You'd Kill yourself or me. Or her. Or a bunch of innocent people."

"There are no innocent people in that city," Jalil muttered. "But April's right. So is Estett," he added, with a nod to the alien. "A weapon that wild and dangerous, you'd need to know exactly what you're doing. Takes these guys three years to learn how to throw one? Let it go, David."

"Well, what are they going to trade us, then?" David demanded.

"How about we ask them?" April said, obviously annoyed at David's continuing display of attitude.

"Okay, if they won't give us the throwing knives, how about a ticket to the Bahamas and three weeks at a fabulous resort with hot and hotter running bikini babes?" I suggested.

"Steel secrets very old. Good steel would be made from book, but not Coo-Hatch steel," Estett said, pointing at the book.

"He's dissing the merchandise. Ah, so we bar-lin, eh?" I said.

April shook her head."He's just pointing out the obvious. What, you think that book has some formula for making better steel than these guys can make? Get real. It's something else he saw in there. Or maybe it's all of it. Either way, I wouldn't mind getting rid of that book - it weighs a ton."

"What do you offer?" Jalil asked the Coo-Hatch.

"Coo-Hatch steel."

"Are we going in circles here?"

The Coo-Hatch don't smile. Couldn't, probably. I never did see its mouth. Not for sure. "Show knife. Small red knife." Jalil fished for his knife again and handed it to Estett. Estett opened the blade. "Poor steel. Coo-Hatch steel better."

These guys a pretty weird, but this might be the safest they've been in Everworld.

# ? Jul 21, 2023 21:10

Strategic Tea: Sep 1, 2012

These guys rule :3:

# ? Jul 21, 2023 23:58

Kazzah: Jul 15, 2011; Formerly known as
Krazyface; Hair Elf

We've had like five wholesome comfortable chapters in a row, here; the next group of people they run into need to be extra-traumatic somehow

# ? Jul 22, 2023 00:33

Soonmot: Dec 19, 2002; Entrapta fucking loves robots; Grimey Drawer

Kazzah posted:

We've had like five wholesome comfortable chapters in a row, here; the next group of people they run into need to be extra-traumatic somehow

well, we're on page 66 of 97 so odds are good!

# ? Jul 22, 2023 02:53

TGG: Aug 8, 2003; "I Dare."

The Coo-Hatch are some of my favorite parts of this series, Coo-Hatch steel is the poo poo.

Also there is some weird poo poo coming up.

# ? Jul 22, 2023 03:20

freebooter: Jul 7, 2009

TGG posted:

The Coo-Hatch are some of my favorite parts of this series, Coo-Hatch steel is the poo poo.

Also there is some weird poo poo coming up.

I'm kinda surprised by how little I remember of this series even though I read nearly all of it. I remember the Coo-Hatch scene here, and I think I remember that they're about to give Jalil a magic cut-through-anything Swiss Army knife, but I don't have a clue how this book finishes out.

# ? Jul 22, 2023 10:42

Malpais Legate: Oct 1, 2014

I have a vague recollection of the Swiss Army Knife and the Coo-Hatch, I think the collected volume I owned as a kid was the first two books with a teaser for the third.

I think the teaser had Jalil as the narrator trying to process the concept of a fuckin dragon.

I have no idea what the deal with these multiple alien species is or where it's going, I'm so much more confused about this whole series than I remember being as a kid.

# ? Jul 22, 2023 18:38

Coca Koala: Nov 28, 2005; ongoing nowhere; College Slice

I have absolutely zero recollection of this, which makes me wonder how many of these books I actually read when I was a kid.

# ? Jul 23, 2023 00:43

Soonmot: Dec 19, 2002; Entrapta fucking loves robots; Grimey Drawer

quote:

CHAPTER XXIII
"Oh, this is good," I said. "What was that sword in King Arthur? You know, his magic sword or whatever?"

"Excalibur," Jalil supplied.

"Yeah. That's it. So our Excalibur is going to be some two-inch-blade Swiss Army knife? Great. Hold up there. Big H, while I unsnap my teeny-tiny knife and trim your evil toenails. Yo, Loki, call your monster wolf-son back or I swear I'll shave off some of his fur"

"It's more than we have right now," David said.

He was pissed, obviously. He wanted some big, nasty firepower, same as me. In the land of the sword, the man with the glock is king.

"Should we really be giving them all the information that may be in that book?" Jalil wondered.

"What, you don't want to violate the Prime Directive, Spock?" I said. "So they learn how to make cleaning solution. Who cares?"

"There are explosives in that book," Jalil whispered. "Or at least that can be extrapolated."

"Don't use words like 'extrapolated,' Jalil; it's not necessary, we all know you're smarter than we are. And who cares? So they make plastique and go around blowing up buildings. I don't care about this place! This place Isn't my home, all right?" Jalil gave me one of his sideways looks.

"You're not finding Everworld scary enough? You want to spread around some new weapons information? I'm not talking 'Save the Aztecs' here, I'm looking at me walking down some street somewhere in this little universe and getting blown away because I wanted a cool knife."

April smiled at Estett. "We need to consider this for just a few seconds." She turned to us and in a low voice said, "Look, I'm sick of carrying the book, anyway; it weighs a ton. Besides, have any of you considered what they might do if we just refuse to trade? I mean, maybe that's like a mortal insult to the Coo-Hatch."

This put a new light on things. I saw a mental picture of a Coo-Hatch blade bisecting me so neatly, so smoothly that the two halves of me would continue alive for a while, blood pumping through arteries, nerves communicating across the minuscule gap, me realizing I'd been chopped in two, trying to use my hands to hold onto my stomach and keep my bottom half attached. Too easy to picture, that was. I'd seen it in living color, or something close, when Huitzilo-poctli's mirror made one Sven Swordeater into two.

"I'm thinking, let's not make anyone mad," I said.

"We do the deal," David said.

"Hey, hey, back up there, Saddam. You don't give the orders here."

He looked surprised. "I'm agreeing with you."

"Fine, then say, 'I agree with Christopher,' not "We do it,' General Jerkwad."

"What's climbed up your butt now?" I jabbed a finger at David's face.

"You're not the hero of this story and the rest of us your faithful followers. The hero lives, the best friend gets killed. The rules of the form, man. You're not the hero of this movie, so back up."

David rolled his eyes.

"He's having a breakdown. What is it they call it? Post-traumatic stress something syndrome? You having flashbacks about the pyramid, Christopher? You seeing obsidian knives?"

"Ignore them." April smiled at Estett.

She took the knife from Jalil's hands, lifted the book up off her lap, and handed both to the Coo-Hatch. "Deal," she said.

It took the Coo-Hatch an hour. They took our little campfire and began blowing into it with their needle mouths. Out of rucksacks and their pouches came various bits of lumpy-looking material, stuff that could be dirt clods for all I knew. They worked. Banged. Blew. Collected water in a little trench they dug from the stream. April found what may have been, could have been a Coo?-Hatch female. She went off and had some girl-talk time. David and Jalil and I just moped and watched the Coo-Hatch and wondered how our lives had brought us here. After a while, and with gray light beginning to outline the treetops above us, the Coo-Hatch handed the knife to Jalil, still warm to the touch, along with a lot of warnings like, "Don't test it on your finger or you'll becounting in base nine, you idiot human." Or words to that effect. Then they took off, the big Grouchos, the little Tinkerbells; they just walked into the woods carrying a high-school chemistry textbook and reading it by the light of the gray dawn. We were alone. April looked grim.

"What's up?" I asked her.

She shook her head. "I was talking to the Coo-Hatch. They're here like us. I mean, they didn't ask to be here, they were carried here by some god of the fire and goddess of the ore or whatever, it was hard to make sense of. Anyway, it was a century ago. They've been trying to find their way back to their own universe ever since. Talking about their families and all, their villages, their forges and mines and so on. They're lonely."

"Trying to get out of here for a hundred years?" Jalil asked.

April shrugged. "That's what they say. There are seven groups of Coo-Hatch wandering around Everworld. A hundred years. They can't get back. Stuck here."

She was acting tough, but there were tears in her eyes and she was swallowing too much. April wanted to go home. So did I. In about ten seconds I was going to bust out crying, too.

"That doesn't mean we're stuck here," I said, doing my best heroic, "never say die," "on to the summit!" voice. I looked to David for support on that, but David's face was carefully neutral. Of course, I thought. That's good news for the glory dog. David never wanted to go home.

"A hundred years," April said.

"Yeah." Jalil opened the knife very, very carefully, as we'd been warned. He found a sapling maybe two inches thick. He cut it once, with an effortless movement, almost a flick of the wrist. With a second reach-around cut, the sapling fell.

"Well," I said. "We have the Magic Toenail Clipper of Power! We have Ex-freaking-calibur. Let us go forth and conquer."

Yeah, these coo-hatch weirdos are cool. I wonder if the gods who took them were ones from out mythology or theirs.

# ? Jul 24, 2023 03:02

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Jun 7, 2024 20:19

WrightOfWay: Jul 24, 2010

Well hopefully they didn't accidentally teach the Coo-Hatch how to make a nuke or something.

# ? Jul 24, 2023 03:18

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > Lets read Everworld-Show me the way to go home.

«‹›18 »